Shit. Shit. Shit.
How the hell did I not know she spoke Italian?
Of course she did. She was partially Italian after all.
Standing there, I watched as the cab disappeared into traffic, my heart pounding with a strange mix of embarrassment and amusement. For a moment, I debated chasing after her, but pride and a sudden sense of vulnerability held me back. Instead, I turned and strolled back toward the deli, replaying the exchange in my mind, wondering what it would take to earn another chance.
Inside, my brother was waiting with a knowing smirk. “So, how’d it go?”
I just shook my head, grabbed an espresso, and sat by the window, determined not to let regret cloud what had been an unexpectedly entertaining morning as my brother laughed at my expense. I’d never had a woman just blatantly refuse my advances before.
It was unsettling. I’d never been so rudely rejected. Women typically threw themselves at my feet. But as I sipped my espresso, I glanced at the door every time it opened, half expecting her to walk back in and surprise me all over again. The city outside felt a little brighter, the air charged with possibility, and I realized I was already plotting my next move. She was unlike anyone I’d met—sharp-tongued, mysterious, and impossible to forget. For the first time in a long while, I lookedforward to whatever came next, fueled by the challenge she presented.
“Cesar gave you a week,” my brother Aurelio cautiously reminded me, looking around the deli.
“It’s only been a day. I’ve got time.”
“You’d better make it count. You heard what Cesar said.”
Flustered, I glared at my brother. “What would you have me do, Aurelio? Kidnap the woman off the street in broad daylight?”
My brother shrugged.
“The old you wouldn’t have thought twice about it.”
He was right. I couldn’t deny there was a certain thrill in the chase. But Aurelio had a point—I had gotten too comfortable with easy victories and forgotten the spark that came from a bit of unpredictability.
With a sigh, I finished my espresso and pushed the cup away.
The morning had turned out nothing like I’d planned.
Maybe Aurelio was right.
Maybe it was time to revert to old tactics.
I glanced at the clock on the deli wall, the second hand ticking with an urgency I could almost feel in my chest. Every minute that passed was another moment closer to Cesar’s deadline. The city outside bustled with its usual indifference, but for me, the stakes had never felt higher. I ran my thumb along the rim of my empty cup, thinking through possibilities. There had to be a way—one that didn’t involve reckless desperation, but still reminded everyone, including myself, exactly who I was.
Fuck it.
Dropping a few bills on the table, I stood.
“What are you going to do?”
I smirked. “What I should have done in the first place.”
With purpose fueling my steps, I strode onto the street, the chilly morning air biting but invigorating. I let the crowd swallow me, my mind already racing through contingencies,contacts, and escape routes. The city wasn’t an obstacle—it was my playground, and I was done waiting for the game to come to me.
It was late when I hailed a cab, giving the driver her address. The thought of confronting her again sent a jolt of anticipation through me, a familiar buzz that had been absent for too long. She had challenged me, defied me even, and the thrill of that unexpected defiance was a potent aphrodisiac. She thought she could dismiss me with a witty retort, a lash of her wicked tongue, but she underestimated the tenacity of a Vitale.
The streets of Chicago, my domain, were a canvas for my strategies, and she, unknowingly, had just painted herself into a corner. I had the power, the resources, and the sheer, unadulterated will to force her to see things my way. The drive was a blur of city lights and internal calculations. I wasn’t just acting on Cesar’s orders anymore; I was driven by a personal desire to unravel the enigma that was Savannah Scott. Her fiery spirit, so out of place in the sterile world of academia, had ignited something within me. It was a dangerous spark, one that threatened to consume the carefully constructed walls of my detachment. But perhaps, I mused, a little controlled chaos was exactly what I needed to break free from the suffocating predictability of my life. Perhaps this woman, this unexpected complication, was the key to unlocking a part of myself I had long since buried.
?By the time the cab pulled up to her building, the moon was high, casting long, distorted shadows across the damppavement. The air was thick with the smell of rain and exhaust fumes, a familiar perfume of the city. I paid the driver, my eyes fixed on the darkened windows of her apartment, a predatory stillness settling over me. She might think she had escaped me, but in Chicago, no one truly escaped the Vitale web. And tonight, I intended to weave a few more threads, ensuring that Savannah Scott understood the true meaning of consequence.
I moved through the darkness with a predatory grace, my footsteps swallowed by the plush carpet. I was a phantom, a whisper of intention in the silent apartment. The door had offered no resistance, a testament to my skill, to the years spent honing the art of infiltration, an art I now wielded not for conquest, but for something far more insidious. I stood at the threshold of her room, the air suddenly heavier, charged with an unspoken tension. My gaze swept over the space, cataloging the details that painted a picture of the woman who inhabited it. Books lined the shelves, their spines a riot of color, promising worlds of escape and knowledge. A vanity table held a scattering of trinkets, a silver-backed brush, a delicate perfume bottle that hinted at a scent I had only caught fleetingly—a whisper of beauty against the violence of my world.
I advanced, drawn by an invisible tether. I wasn’t there to harm her.
Not tonight, at least.
